Dreams
by IronHeartWriter
Summary: Clint wakes from a disturbing dream and Natasha tries to calm him down as best she can. Black Hawk oneshot


**AN: Hello there. I wrote this up while my muse for my other story is being mean to me. It's just a little random oneshot that came into my mind. I hope it's enjoyed. And, as always, I own nothing.**

Clint could feel his heart pounding painfully against his chest as he ran. He had his bow and a quiver of arrows on his back, but he couldn't see anything in the dark tunnel around him aside from the bright light he was running towards. Where the hell was he? He reached the end of the tunnel but found that he had to stop himself from running right off the edge of the passage and into another room at least fifty feet below. He blinked and weighed his options. Jumping wasn't an option, turning back into the dark passage wasn't seeming too rational, considering he couldn't see a damn thing in there. With a soft growl, he pressed a quick combinations of buttons on his bow and the arrow tips attached to his quiver shifted to one that functioned as a grappling hook. He shot the arrow easily and it caught on the pillar that stood in the middle of the room below.

Clint jumped off the ledge and allowed himself to swing down and land on the floor in a crouch. Now where was he going to go? What had he been running from again anyway? Then he heard a soft sound. He turned, looking for the source. Footsteps? Was that what he was hearing? His grip on his bow tightened as he programmed the quiver for the normal arrowheads. His eyes narrowed as Loki appeared in front of him, walking through a doorway that seemed to materialize out of no where. In an instant, he had a bow notched and ready to be fired, "Come any closer and this arrow is going to go straight through your eye socket," He warned with a growl.

Loki froze, his smirk in place, "Why, Agent Barton, it's nice to see you too," He said in a soft tone. Clint didn't relax his stance though. He knew Loki had a tongue of silver. The God of Mischief was hardly someone who could ever be trusted.

"Where are we?" Clint demanded. He didn't believe he had to deal with pleasantries when it came to Loki. Hell, the bastard had fucked with his mind "And what are you doing here? I thought Thor was keeping an eye on you on Asgard."

Loki merely chuckled, a deep throaty sound, "Oh, simple Agent Barton. You really aren't the brightest of all the Avengers, are you?" He started to walk away and his hand shot up just as Clint fired an arrow at the back of his neck. "We've danced this dance before as well."

"You didn't answer my questions," Clint growled. He really didn't have any patience for Loki, especially after the hell Loki had caused in New York City, where Clint was pretty sure he himself was supposed to be at that moment.

"Why don't you follow me then?" Loki suggested with a shrug as he snapped Clint's arrow in half with a simple movement. "I actually think I have something that you might want."

Clint's brow knit as he glared at Loki's back. He looked around the room and saw that the door that Loki was heading to really was the only feasible way out. He hesitantly started to follow the god, though at a distance, and his hand firmly gripping his bow.

"It _has_ been a while since we've last seen each other, hasn't it?" Loki asked. Clint was getting more and more on edge with every word that Loki said. He had a feeling the god was just playing him for a fool once again. Clint thought for a moment. If his memory served him correctly, it was just over six months since the god had tried to destroy New York. "Tell me, Agent Barton, how is that lovely spider friend of yours?"

A low growl rumbled in Clint's chest. Loki dared to mention Natasha to him? Really? Was Loki just _that_ stupid? His hand ached to reach for another arrow and to keep firing until he put several arrows through Loki's back. Natasha was one person he would never discuss with Loki. His partner had been very vague as to what Loki had once said to her while she had been trying to find him. The most he knew was that Loki had threatened to use him to kill her. Other than that, he knew nothing. It had taken Clint a few weeks to get that much out of her, but once she gave him a hint of it, he let it drop. Pushing Natasha to tell him that much had nearly caused her to stop talking to him.

"Such anger," Loki commented when he got no response from Clint. He stopped walking and turned to face Clint, his smirk in place once again, "Tell me, Agent Barton, you trust me enough to walk down a dark corridor with me?" His eyes glinted with mischief, "You really were made to be ruled. Come, I have something to show you."

Another door appeared in front of them and Clint felt his heart start to race again. He had a bad feeling about what he was about to walk into. Loki said nothing as he opened the door and led Clint into the room. In the center of the dimly lit room was a metal table. On that table was...

"Natasha!"

Clint snarled as he took in the sight of Natasha chained down, a gag in her mouth, her eyes glazed over with a drugged haze, her breathing ragged. He reached for an arrow and turned to face Loki, only to come face to face with Loki's scepter, the tip pointing at his chest. Loki's smirk continued to stay in place as the energy started to hum through the spear, "Let's see if you can finish what I started the last time we met, shall we? I told her that I was going to have you kill her slowly, intimately, and in every way that you know she fears. And truly, Agent Barton, who knows her better than you?"

"No! _NO! _I won't hurt her again! I won't hurt any of them again!" Clint fought as his mind started to go hazy with the thoughts of all the agents who had died the last time he had been under Loki's control.

"No... no, I won't..."

Clint yelped as he rolled out of bed and landed hard on the cold marble floors, his head hitting the marble with a hard thunk. He let out a string of curses in English, Japanese, Spanish, and Russian before thinking how thankful he was that his bed wasn't on a loft like Stark had originally planned.

"Clint?"

Natasha's voice was groggy with sleep as she sat up slowly before looking over the edge of the bed. Clint sighed softly and rubbed his forehead. He'd have a large lump on the back of his head by the end of the day, but at least he could tell himself that everything with Loki had all been a dream.

"You had another nightmare," Natasha said knowingly as she perched on the edge of the bed, looking down at him. Clint thought vaguely about how Natasha seemed to know him too well at times. As well as she knew him, he wasn't in the mood to talk to her about his dreams. He got up with a wince, stretched, and went straight for the bathroom without a word. He locked the door, though he knew if Natasha wanted in, she'd pick the lock in a heartbeat. He stripped off his boxers and went into the shower, turning the hot water on, but not bothering with the cold, not giving a damn if the water seared his skin. Now that he thought about it, he actually was a little cold, and the hot water felt good. He stood directly under the jet of water, his hands braced against the tiled wall of the shower while, one by one, his muscles started to relax.

He was surprised, as the water started to run cold about half an hour later, Natasha hadn't come after him. He finally stepped out of the shower, wrapped a towel around his waist, and went back into his bedroom. Natasha sat in the center of his bed, her eyes watching him carefully as he walked across the room to his dresser.

"Are you going to do anything other than stare at me all day?" Clint asked, a little more roughly than he had meant to. He pinched the bridge of his nose, already feeling another headache coming on.

"Oh, now you talk to me," Natasha returned coldly. Clint clenched his jaw. He knew he deserved that. He heard Natasha move from the bed and walk up behind him. He braced himself for a kick or a hit, but one never came, "What's going on with you, Clint?" She asked in a low voice, her hand ghosting along his shoulder. She pulled her hand back when Clint flinched and she sighed, shaking her head. "It was Loki, wasn't it?"

"How can you trust me, Natasha?" Clint asked suddenly after pulling a white wife beater over his head. He turned to face her, his arms crossed over his chest. "I tried to kill you."

"While you were being controlled by Loki," Natasha reminded him. Her eyes blazed a bit, "Clint, it wasn't you-"

"I'm an _assassin_, Natasha!" Clint snarled, slamming his fist against the wood dresser and leaving a dent in the side of it. "Damn it, I can kill in the blink of an eye, whether it be with a bow and arrow, with a gun, or with my own hands, and I _have_ done it with all three of them without a single thought about the life of the person I was doing it to. I would have done it to you without a single thought, and yet you come back to me every single night and you trust me..."

"Clint, I'm just as deadly as you are," Natasha said in a soft voice, sitting on the edge of the bed. Clint had gone through a small number of these breakdowns, usually after a particularly vivid dream of Loki. The only thing she could do was to try and talk him down and calm him down. "And you _didn't_ kill me."

"But I did hurt you," Clint said, able to remember clearly how he had first tried to impale Natasha with an arrow and when that had failed, he had tried to stab her.

"Yeah, and I hit you hard enough in the head to get you to stop," Natasha reminded him with a roll of her eyes. "Clint, we were both hurting each other then. But we weren't responsible for it. It was Loki, Clint. It was always him." She walked up to him and reached up to touch his cheek, only to have him grab her wrist. His eyes were steely and cold, but Natasha didn't back down. "Clint, listen to me. You're a good person. You are _not_ the person that Loki tried to make you out to be." She winced slightly as she tried to get Clint to release her wrist. Clint's grip instantly loosened and he walked away from her.

He stood in front of the large window, resting his forehead against the cool glass. He suddenly felt like he was entirely too restrained. Stark Tower was huge and his floor was more than spacious, but suddenly he felt like there was no air in the room. His heart started to race and his hands started to tremble. He was slowly losing it. Natasha noticed the slight tremble in Clint's shoulders and she reached out to him, "Clint, we need to get you out of here."

Clint laughed darkly, clenching his fist and resting it against the glass, "And just where am I going to go? You think I could keep my mind sane enough to get to one of my own places outside the city?"

Natasha took Clint's hand, knowing that he very well might snap when she did, but she didn't care. She pulled him over to the elevator and pushed one of the buttons to the gym. She wasn't sure who else was up, but she knew Clint needed to get everything out before he let loose, or worse, suppressed it. She glanced around the gym, thankful to find it empty, "Jarvis, lock down this floor for the time being. I don't give a damn if Tony wants to come in here himself. Lock it down."

"Yes, Ms. Romanoff," Jarvis responded as Clint looked around. He was a little confused why Natasha had brought him there, but he decided to hold off on the questions, at least until he saw her get into the ring in the middle of the room.

"Come on," Natasha said, holding her arms out, waiting for him in the center of the ring.

"Have you lost it?" Clint asked, looking Natasha up and down. He knew good and well Natasha could hold her own against him in a sparring match, but he also knew her limits. He wasn't too sure how well he could stick to those limits with the way he was feeling.

"No, but you're going to if you don't get in here and spar with me," Natasha said simply, walking to lean on the ropes as she spoke to him. She looked him dead in his eyes, "Loki's going to destroy you mentally without even being on Earth if you keep suppressing how you feel after those nightmares. Now, get your ass in this ring and spar with me."

Clint's eyes flashed angrily as he jumped onto the apron of the ring, "You think you know what it's like," He said with a low growl before he used the ropes to propel himself into the middle of the ring. "You said you know what it's like to be undone by somebody and have them play with your mind. But really, Natasha, what do you know?"

He struck out suddenly, delivering a punishing blow to Natasha's abdomen that she hadn't been prepared for. She rolled across the floor of the ring with a soft groan and Clint felt the adrenaline start to rush through his body. She had wanted to spar? Clint was going to spar with her. She couldn't say that he hadn't warned her.

"You don't know what it was like inside my mind when Loki decided to play with me," Clint growled as Natasha rose to her feet. He kicked her legs out from under her again, not letting her get steady, "You don't know what it was like to be watching what was going on from the inside and trying to stop it all, but not being able to."

He pulled Natasha up by her hair, not missing the hiss that escaped her lips as he did so. He felt a strange sense of deja vu as he pulled her head back to reveal her neck. He hadn't forgotten how close he had been to once slicing that neck open. He could see her neck throbbing ever so slightly at her pulse point and instantly he felt disgusted with himself, "Goddamn it, Tasha," He released her and fell to his knees, the heels of his palms pressed to his eyes. What the hell was wrong with him? He felt the pressure shift on the canvas as Natasha sat beside him.

She reached out to him again, wrapping her arms around his shoulders, "Clint, it's okay," She said in a soft voice in his ear. "It's all going to be okay. He's not going to be able to get you again."

"How do you know that, Tasha?" Clint asked, finally looking up at her. He was disgusted that he had lost control for a moment there. She was his partner, damn it. He cared for her more than anything else he had. What the hell had he been thinking?

"Because you're stronger than him," Natasha said simply. She looked into his eyes, making sure to not let him break their eye contact, "You're stronger than him, Clint. You need to remember that." She smirked, "Also, what makes you think I'd let you get controlled by him again? We were apart when you were taken. That was Fury's mistake. Together, we're a damn near unbeatable team."

Clint rolled his eyes, "It also helps that I no longer go on missions without my bow and arrows. What the hell was Fury thinking having me out there with only a gun?"

Natasha shook her head, "Now you're starting to sound like you're getting back to normal." Her eyes narrowed slightly and she launched at Clint, pinning him to the floor of the ring, her hands on his wrists while she straddled his abdomen, "Now, I owe you for those kicks and the hair pulling. Prepare to be punished, Agent Barton."

End.


End file.
